Exile

by Denise Mina

  Back in the living room she crossed her arms. There was no TV in the room, no family photos, no books or ornaments or mementoes, nothing that wasn’t essential and second-hand. They didn’t even have a radio. Next to the armchair sat a stack of free local newspapers. Jimmy had been tearing them into strips for use as toilet paper. She could hear him through the ceiling, coaxing the children into bed, when she suddenly remembered the blue sports bag with the troubling sticker. It was green and white and looped around the handle. She looked at it. It was a British Airways luggage sticker. Liam used to have them on his bags all the time when he was dealing. She crept over to it. The bag had been from London to Glasgow and the name, in tiny print on the fold, said‘ Harris’. It was dated less than a week ago. She stepped back and looked at it, trying to reason away the incongruity. Someone might have given him the bag, someone with his name, a family member, but the bag sat as if it had been emptied recently, the base flattened on the floor, the sides flapping open. The scenario made no sense. Jimmy had flown to London on an expensive airline when they were too poor to buy a kettle.

  The water was spitting hot but she could only find one mug, with black rings of tea stain inside. She made tea, took it back into the living room, sat down in the chair and lit a cigarette. It was damp and cold in the room. She could hear Jimmy coming down the stairs, leaving the restless children calling for him, answering their pleas with a curt ‘Shut it.’ He sauntered into the living room. He had wet his hair. Maureen stood up and offered him a fag. He took it, bending over her for a light. ‘You sit,’ she said.

  Jimmy lifted the mug and sipped, looking up at her as he sat down.

  ‘Jimmy, why does Ann owe so much money?’

  ‘Come on.’ He smiled. ‘Come on, we’ll not talk about her.’

  Jimmy didn’t want to talk about kids or Ann or money. He wanted a quick, fumbled fuck with anyone willing and a ten-minute pause in the incessant worry. He held out his hand to her and bared his sharp, hunting teeth. Maureen pulled her coat closed. ‘I want to talk about her,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s why I came.’

  Long acclimatized to disappointment, Jimmy let his outstretched hand fall to the side of the chair. ‘She borrowed money for drink,’ he said finally. ‘Then she borrowed to pay the loan and it got worse and worse and worse. Ann’s not a bad woman. It’s the drink. She’s different when she’s not drinking. When she drinks she’s a cunt.’

  ‘Ye don’t think she could be dead, do ye?’

  ‘I know she’s not. She cashed the child-benefit book on Thursday.’

  ‘In Glasgow?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Jimmy sipped his tea despondently. ‘They don’t tell ye that at the post office, just that it’s been cashed and I can’t get it.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll come back here?’

  Jimmy shook his head into his chest. ‘She’s not coming back.’ He sipped the tea, tipping the mug back and grimacing.

  ‘D’ye know where she is?’

  ‘She’s got a sister in London. Maybe she knows.’

  ‘Could I phone her?’

  ‘I dunno if she’s on the phone.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Moe Akitza.’

  Maureen wrote the sister’s name on a receipt from her pocket and showed Jimmy the spelling. ‘I think that’s right.’ He smiled at her. ‘Mad name, eh? She married a big darkie.’ She knew if she pressed him he’d claim not to be prejudiced against anyone, except those grasping Pakis, of course. And the freeloading Indians. And the arrogant English.

  And the drunken Irish. And the suspiciously swarthy. ‘Well, Jimmy, thanks very much. It was kind of ye to talk to me.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m pressed as ye can see.’ They smiled at each other to pass the time. Maureen broke it off. ‘Ye really don’t know where she is, do ye?’ He looked into his empty mug and shook his head. ‘D’ye miss her?’ she asked.

  Jimmy didn’t need time to think about it. ‘No,’ he said, very sure and very sad.

  Behind her the front door flew open, letting a cold slap of night air into the living room. Two wee boys with wet hair and filthy faces strolled into the room, their arms at forty-five-degree angles to their small bodies, strutting like miniature hard men. Their clothes were poor, even for scheme kids. Everything they were wearing had approximated to a dull grey colour, the result of overwashing in cheap soap. Jimmy warmed and smiled when he saw them and his boys grinned back. ‘All right, Da?’ said the oldest. ‘Where’s our tea?’

  Jimmy cupped a gentle hand around the back of the bigger boy’s head and swept him along into the dark kitchen. The younger one stayed in the living room and looked up at Maureen. He was the boy from the Polaroid photo, the boy holding the hand of the big man in the camel-hair coat, but he looked different close up: he had a little widow’s peak, his eyelashes were thick and long.

  He looked at her expensive overcoat. ‘Are ye a social worker?’ he asked, in a tiny voice. ‘No, I’m a pal of your mum’s.’

  His face lit up. ‘Mammy?’ S Mammy coming home?’

  ‘No, John,’ Jimmy shouted. ‘The lady’s just looking for her.’

  Maureen looked into the kitchen. Jimmy was standing in the shadowy kitchen with his son, spreading cheap margarine on Supersavers white bread. She turned her back to the kitchen door, hoping Jimmy wouldn’t hear her. ‘Son, did you get your picture taken with a man at school recently? In the playground with a big man with short hair?’ The boy nodded. ‘Who was the man?’

  The boy licked at the snotters on his top lip with a deft tongue. ‘It was picture for Mammy,’ he said quietly, as if he didn’t want Jimmy to hear either.

  ‘Was your mum there?’

  ‘Naw.’

  ‘Who took the picture?’

  ‘’Nother man.’

  ‘And did ye know that man?’

  ‘Nut.’

  ‘Have ye seen your mammy since your brother’s birthday?’

  ‘Nut.’

  ‘Thanks, son,’ she said, and it struck her how small he was, how thin his skin was, how it was a quarter to ten at night and he was six and had just come in from playing in the street with his brother. She wanted to wrap him in her good coat and make him warm and take him away and feed him nice food and read to him and give him the chance of a life. She wanted to cry. The wee boy sensed her pity and knew she was sorry for him, for the state he was in and for his future. He frowned at the floor. She hated herself. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said, and stood up, ruffling his hair like a patronizing idiot. She cleared her throat and called into the kitchen, ‘I’m away, then, Jimmy.’ Jimmy didn’t turn to see her go. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and see ye if I find her.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Jimmy flatly, folding a slice of bread into a sandwich. ‘Don’t come.’

  A scratched message on the back of the lift doors informed the world that A McG sucked cocks. Maureen was glad to get out of the smelly lobby, glad to be away from Jimmy and his malnourished kids, eager to forget what she had seen. It was hard to look on poverty so all-pervasive that it even extended to his speech. She worked through the normalizing justifications: maybe Jimmy was lazy and deserved it; maybe he liked it, lots of people were poorer than him– but she had eight thousand pounds in her bank account and he had four kids and no kettle and she couldn’t think of a single thing that made that all right. She felt her father following her across the yard to the street, his glassy eyes watching from every dark corner. Her muscles tensed suddenly and she broke into a run. Jimmy was right. Wherever Ann was she wouldn’t come back here.

  9

  Fight Night

  ‘Jimmy Harris couldn’t hit a tambourine.’ Maureen took a deep drink of her whisky and lime and felt the thin skin inside her top lip shrivel in the concentrated solution. ‘Someone else must have beat her up.’

  Leslie was sitting ac
ross the table picking at the picture on a sodden beer mat. They were in the Grove, a small pub below a block of tenements. It had been the bottom flat at one time and the layout was still discernible. The supporting walls had been knocked down and riveted cast-iron pillars stood in their place. The lights were bright and two large televisions flickered silently at either end of the fifteen-foot bar. The pub attracted a good-natured crowd of regulars, they milled around the room, talking and laughing, watching the horse-racing with one eye while they chatted to their pals. Leslie had been thinking about what Maureen had said to her in the Driftwood and had worked herself into a filthy mood. Maureen thought Cammy would be waiting for her at home and Leslie would be anxious to get back before the boil on his neck exploded.

  ‘What did he say?’ Leslie asked casually, as if she didn’t really care, but Maureen could feel her fishing for something, something too private and precious to share with her. ‘Nothing much.’ She shrugged. ‘Ann owes money to loan sharks and he doesn’t think she’ll ever come back. She’s taken the child-benefit book and it’s being cashed consistently.’

  Leslie sat up. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Leslie thought about it. ‘Does that mean she’s cashing it?’

  ‘Dunno. When did Ann turn up at the shelter?’

  ‘December ninth,’ said Leslie, without having to think about it. ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s about a month-long gap between her leaving Jimmy and coming to us. She was up and down to London, seemingly.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘He says.’

  ‘Aye.’ Leslie was sceptical. ‘Why would you believe anything that bastard says.’

  ‘Look,’ said Maureen, ‘he’s just a poor fucking soul who knows nothing. She won’t go back there and he didn’t hit her either.’

  ‘You could tell that from one meeting?’ But Leslie hadn’t seen the bare house, she hadn’t smelt the lift, couldn’t imagine the effort it must take for Jimmy to get up in the morning and manage all day. Maureen lit a cigarette, haunted by the image of Jimmy’s jagged teeth. ‘I think she had a boyfriend,’ she said, ‘and she’s gone back to him and he hits her. She’ll be there now, pissing it up on the child benefit while that poor bastard feeds his kids on watery bread and margarine.’

  Leslie sneered at her. ‘Why do you think he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Because if he was lying,’ said Maureen firmly, ‘he’d give himself a better part.’

  Leslie watched Maureen looking miserably around the pub, drinking quickly like she did these days, sighing heavily, as if she wanted to get away and be alone. Maureen had changed. Leslie knew she was nervous about her father being back in Glasgow but she was jumpy and moody and frightened of everything. They had been spending less and less time together and Leslie couldn’t see an end to it. Maureen didn’t like Cammy because he wasn’t polished and hadn’t been to university. They should have been closer now that they were working together but they weren’t. Maureen looked freaked out half the time and bored the rest of it, and she had a new boyfriend she hadn’t bothered to mention– Leslie had to hear it from Katia in the office. Leslie was beginning to think they had been too close, that it had been too intense before, with the poster campaign and Millport, and she’d seen a side of Maureen that frightened her. There was a fight brewing between them and she knew it would be a big fight. She took a drag and looked up. Maureen was watching the racing results. She was watching racing results rather than talk to her. ‘What should we do now?’ asked Leslie.

  Maureen sipped her whisky and looked at the racing results again. ‘You want to find Ann?’ she said. ‘Yeah,’ said Leslie.

  ‘Well, why don’t you check out the pubs around the shelter? They’ll have seen her.’

  Leslie stared at her. She’d gone to Millport with her. She’d spent a summer in a mental hospital keeping her company, she had driven her around for weeks after Douglas was killed, and now Maureen was refusing to help her. ‘You really don’t give a shit what happened to Ann, do you, Maureen?’

  Maureen sighed. ‘Give it a fucking rest, Leslie. She’s fucked off. Accept it. She fucked off and left her weans and her poor wee man to pay off her drinking debts.’

  ‘Her poor wee man? I don’t fucking think so.’

  ‘I know he didn’t hit her.’

  ‘Because he seemed ordinary?’ said Leslie, pulling rank.

  It was a basic article of faith at the Place of Safety Shelters that any man was capable of hitting any woman, and for her to suggest that Maureen was dismissing Jimmy because he looked ordinary was as good as calling her an idiot.

  ‘Right, Leslie. Stop it. This isn’t about PSS theology.’

  ‘Maureen, two women are murdered every week by their partner or an ex.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ shouted Maureen, losing the place. ‘I know all that. I know he didn’t hit her because he’s passive and put upon and he’s got four kids under ten and she’s fucked off and doesn’t give a shit. It’s just possible that she was battered by a loan shark, did that occur to you? Maybe that’s why she wanted the compensation-board photos taken, so she could use them as protection if they came back for her.’

  Maureen was shouting at her in a pub full of people. Leslie didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t walk away from another fight because she’d lost her bottle in Millport, and Maureen would never respect her if she ducked again. She leaned across the table and spoke quietly. ‘Do you want to fight me?’

  Maureen snorted, and shouted back at her. ‘Do I want to what?’

  ‘Let’s go outside and have a fight and sort this out once and for all.’

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

  ‘I’ll fight ye,’ said Leslie quietly. ‘Things haven’t been right between us since Millport.’

  ‘It’s a pity you weren’t so fucking ripe at the fucking time, isn’t it?’ It was wrong of Maureen to say that but there was no going back. The final thread of cautious concern snapped and she went for it. ‘You’ve completely changed since you started seeing that prick Cammy.’ Leslie stood up. ‘How have I changed?’

  Maureen stood up to meet her, slamming her glass down on the table, knocking the ashtray on to the floor. ‘You’re precious,’ she shouted. ‘And you’re moody.’ She jabbed a vicious finger at Leslie’s shoulder. ‘And why the fuck are you walking about with your tits hanging out?’

  ‘LADIES!’ The barman bolted across the floor of the pub, shouting louder than both of them. ‘LADIES. Keep it friendly or go home.’

  They swung round in unison, glaring at him, and he knew the fight wasn’t going to end there. He held his hand towards the door. ‘Good night to both of you,’ he said firmly.

  They gathered their jackets and helmets and stormed out of the bar into the rainy night, stopping on the pavement as the pub doors swung shut behind them. They could hear the crowd in the bar chorusing a long swooping ‘woow’ and laughing at them. Leslie leaned into Maureen’s face. ‘Give me my fucking helmet back.’

  A pinprick of saliva landed on Maureen’s pupil. ‘Take it.’ Maureen shoved the helmet at her. ‘Fucking take it, then.’ Leslie snatched it from her and walked off round the corner, leaving Maureen standing alone in the spitting rain. They should have waited five minutes. They would have been crying and hugging each other within five minutes. They’d go home with a bottle and talk it out. Maureen waited on the pavement, hoping Leslie would come back. The pub door opened behind her and a couple stepped on to the pavement. They recognized Maureen and smirked, wrapping their arms around each other and tramping off into the wind. The door swung shut, banging off the frame a couple of times, coming to rest. The street was still. One block away a motorbike fired up and roared away to the west. Leslie wasn’t coming back. Maureen waited. Leslie wasn’t coming back.

  She walked home in the pissing rain, too tired and sad to think. The rain
was running down her face, trickling through her hair, dripping down her neck and soaking into her shirt collar. She’d reached the bottom of the steep hill to her house before she remembered Jimmy. She turned round and walked back down the road, stopping at a cash machine on the way. She withdrew two hundred and fifty quid, walked to the scheme in Finneston and took the pissy lift up to the second floor. She tiptoed along the landing and slid the money through Jimmy’s letterbox, bolting for the stairs in case he came out and saw her. She knew from her own experience that nothing belittles more viciously than pity and Jimmy was small enough already.

  It was only when she got down to the street that she admitted the truth: going back to give the money to Jimmy was just a pretext. She wanted to go past the pub again, to see if Leslie was there. She stopped and looked along the street to the Grove, too embarrassed to go back in. But Leslie wasn’t there. And Leslie wasn’t coming back.

  10

  Bad Day

  Michael had a fever. He was scratching through the window into her bedroom, his knife-edged nails gouging through the glass. She was sweating and exhausted, and knew she couldn’t take the noise any more. She leaned across to open the window and a river of blood flooded into her house. The anxious, heavy knocking woke her up. Her first thought was Leslie, Leslie had come back, but it wasn’t her knock and she didn’t do morning visits. She sat up and looked at her watch. It was nine thirty and the Ruchill fever tower lurked behind the bedroom curtain.

  It was cold out in the hall. A lone blue envelope ached on the mat and the answerphone flashed a red message. She pulled on her overcoat over her T-shirt and knickers, kicking the letter under the telephone table for later, and looked out of the spy-hole. Detective Inspector Hugh McAskill brushed the rain from his red hair and looked back at her, his long melancholy face distorted wide by the convex glass, his blue eyes watery and tired, his cheeks flushed from the cold. Behind him stood moustachioed DI Inness, dressed for the weather in a scarf and gloves and sturdy anorak. It was a bad day for this; she felt stupid and friendless and sick. She could pretend to be out and hope they’d go away. ‘We know you’re in there.’ McAskill spoke gently. ‘We can hear you moving about.’